FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2010
Exploring Our Understanding of the Resurrected Life
The “our” in the title refers to two themes in this article: the
Church's understanding and our own personal comprehension. As the
Church meditates on the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and develops a
deeper understanding of the mysteries, we in turn listen to this
developed doctrine and deepen our spiritual life.
Christology and Eschatology
You can have an intimate knowledge of the heart and mind of a person you love but still find it difficult to describe him to someone else. The Church during the first centuries would struggle to find the words to describe Jesus, especially to refute false statements about her Beloved. Today this is called "development of doctrine". Not that doctrine "evolves" into something different but rather the Church's understanding grows as a seed grows with genetic integrity. We see a summary of this growth in understanding in the ancient Apostle's Creed and the Christian-defining Nicene Creed. Jesus is true God and true Man. It is of first importance that we accept true doctrine about Christ, Christology. There is also no reason I know that our understanding of true doctrine about the last things, Eschatology, cannot grow as well.
Early Christians were instinctively moved by faith to reject opinions about Christ that belittled or impinged his true humanity or divinity. A similar theological situation in my opinion may exist today concerning our Christian belief in the nature of the resurrected life. We know that the people of God under the Old Testament grew in their understanding of life after death – from a vague image of a shadow in Sheol (hell) to the resurrection of the flesh. This later understanding is especially made clear in the scene of Jesus with Martha and Mary at the raising of Lazarus. We also see from St. Paul's letters to his churches that people were caught up in imagining what the resurrected life would be like. We Christians have continued to meditate on this life. The struggle is between exaggerating either the physical or spiritual condition of the resurrected ones.
Yet, today, while there is a great body of Sacred Tradition and Scripture concerning the resurrection, most Christians must rely on the creedal formulae “I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” (Apostle's) and “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” (Nicene). Again, in my personal opinion the Church would benefit today from a definitive expression on the true physical condition of the resurrected body and the true dominion of the resurrected soul. Real human flesh under the power of a real human soul in heavenly union with God. Aside from this Catholic development I also think our personal spiritual progress is indicated by our idea of the “life of the world to come”.
Heaven
First, and above all, heaven is the result of God's love. We are in heaven when every stain of selfish sin is removed and we are completely in love with God and all his holy ones. Pope John Paul II affirmed this when he issued a very short ( a few small paragraphs) teaching about “heaven”. He stated simply that heaven is not a place but a state of being. It is the state of being in complete union with God. We, of course, should fully assent to this teaching. When a pope teaches that there is no salvation outside of the Church, we should also fully assent to that teaching as well. But both teachings must be received in the full context of all of Sacred Tradition and Scripture. True, to be “in heaven” is to be in union with God. However, our notion of a “state of being”, pardon the pun, can be amorphous. Being alive, being human, being Christian are states of being but ones that take place and need moment. It is not that the Holy Spirit, providing for the indefectibility of the Church, did not prevent an erroneous teaching by these Popes. It is that these statements can only be understood correctly surrounded by all of Catholic Tradition. In other words, they would be perhaps inadequate and misleading if taken out of that context. If I were there with Pope John Paul II, I might simply have remarked to him, “And the Resurrection?”.
Turning to John Paul II's great project, “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, we learn that it is essential that Man has a body and the dignity of the body (#364 – 366). We learn of the reality of Christ's risen body (#643 – 647). But we also learn that the risen body is “not limited by space and time” (645) and “beyond time and space” (646). The risen share, though as creatures always, the sovereignty of God over the world or universe. This clearly is shown in #645 when declaring that our Lord may appear at any time and in any guise. The point is that any state of being for a creature with a dimensional body will always require “place” even when that time and place is at the will of the gloriously risen one. We will not rise from the dead and our bodies evaporate or “ghostify” as we enter a catatonic ecstatic eternal state of being. Jesus did not ascend to the Father never to appear again. We not only believe in his resurrection and ascension but in “his coming again in glory”.
The Resurrection of Body and Soul
Do you think the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel words of Jesus in Luke 24:36-43 only as a teaching story? Jesus demonstrated that he was not just a spirit. Even earlier than this post-Resurrection appearance our Lord gave the starting knowledge of what the resurrected life would be like. The synoptic accounts in Mt. 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-36 detail his response to the Sadducees' rejection of resurrection of the body.
We can picture the Sadducee group. Barely able to suppress their grins, they approach this country “rabbi” with a delicious satire of the popular belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Surely he will make us laugh at his bumbling attempt to reconcile the ridiculous!
With calm authority Jesus wipes the smirk from their faces. You err, he tells them. Your very question is an error because you know neither the power of God nor the Scripture. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living. Those who rise will not marry because they live like the angels.
Their life is founded on the abilities or law of the Spirit and is not dependent on the physical. They will not die, they are sons of the resurrection.
If we think about this passage carefully we will hear our Lord not only rebuke the Sadducees' sophisicated increduality about the resurrection of the dead but also his rebuttal of a naïve literalism about the event. We also err if we believe that the resurrection is simply a glorious resuscitation of the life in the Garden of Eden. We will not be running around sorting out spouses and third cousins.
It will be important to return frequently, however, to the Luke 24 passage I mentioned briefly at the start of this section. Jesus ate food. ( And perhaps also in John 21 though that is not perfectly clear – he certainly is protrayed by the inspired evangelist as cooking!) Jesus, risen and no longer dependent on food, eats. Is this done just to prove his bodily resurrection or is it an action that hints at the life of the resurrected? We will return again to this subject.
Our Spiritual Stage of Growth
A person's concept of life after our mortal death seems to be indicative of their spiritual development. Let me give two real descriptions of “heaven” I've heard from two people who may represent opposite ends of the spectrum. One good fellow is very religious in his conversation and is constantly available to others for concrete advice and prayer. When he speaks about heaven he describes becoming so united to God that we become God. He imagines a total union of love that we never achieve with God or neighbor in this life. When asked about our Catholic faith in the resurrection he is really not interested. For this person, body and place are simply besides the point. We will be united to God, the source of all good. Nothing else has value. Toward the other end of the spectrum, another friend describes a lovely cottage in a cozy country setting. In that cottage he can be a master carpenter building beautiful furniture. He is imagining the peace, personal serenity and skill that we want in this life but, again, never achieve.
Both pictures of heaven ssek the fulfillment of the heart. So, is the spiritual focus on the Beatific Vision much closer to the mark? Perhaps – but the second one includes the created universe and the neighbor that the furniture is being built for. What happens to our Lord's risen Body in the first vision? To our blessed Mother and the angels and saints? To the “new heavens” and “new earth” spoken of in Revelation? As it is necessary to keep in balance our Christological beliefs in the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, such a balance is necessary for our view of the resurrected life. We must acknowledge, in our idea of this life to come, God as center and also the real goodness of creation and the dignity of our intellect, free will and body. Again, it is vital to remember that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man. We must also keep in mind both the spiritual and physical victory of the Resurrection. Personally I go along with another friend who says every time he imagines our heavenly life, his ideas soon deflate or “go squish”. We simply do not have the ability to see the resurrected life.
A Suggested Comparison
An effective way to proportion the relationship between our lives now and our resurrected life is to compare the unborn child to the adult man or woman. Look at the developing of the unborn but especially at the point where soon they will be born into the world. They are comfortable and seemingly secure in their mother's womb. Yet they are unseeing in an environment of extreme limits. While warmly enveloped they may feel the satisfaction of sucking their thumb. We may imagine them knowing something of “the other than self” by awareness of the bodily processes of the mother – heart beat, blood circulation, digestion, outside sounds and bumps and voices.
Yet what do these unborn children really know of the “born” world? Compare a healthy unborn baby to the fully grown healthy adult. The adult lives in a world that is almost literally infinitely larger. The adult has light versus constant shadow. He has the vision of others. His movement is again infinitely greater – just think of the vast difference between a young athlete and the same person in the womb. Beyond the physical, an adult has a mental and emotional world that defies the comparison. From others he has learned language, community, skills, love. Further, as adults we “sense” the spiritual mysteries as an unborn child would have a vague, undefined perception of the greater outside world. We who believe in the life that comes after the death of this body should realize that we are like an unborn child. The resurrected world will indeed be seeded from this one but more gloriously expanded. As St. Paul remeinds us, faith does not hope in what is seen. Again, we truly have no adequate idea of the glory of our risen life.
While it is true that we cannot know the glory of the risen world, something of the full growth can really be seen in the seed just as we relate the newly conceived baby to the born adult. We can catch perhaps a glimpse of our resurrected life in the Alpha of our Lord's resurrection – Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body and ascended to the Father in that glorified body. But that body did not then evaporate. Remember that the Church teaches that even in his natural span of life Jesus had what we call the beatific vision. Yet the Scripture clearly shows us that Jesus lived like us in all things except sin. The Godly vision of the risen Just will not make the redeemed physical universe disappear – our world will end by transformation as, caterpiller to butterfly, the child is transformed into the adult, as Mary's body was transformed at the Assumption. We will not be left lying down on a blank planetary sphere in a physical catatonic state while our spirits enjoy a solely spiritual communion of the angels and saints. We will move, see, communicate and love God and neighbor in a way beyond what we can now. When we strain to imagine it, we use our limited womb-like experience and fail. But this unborn baby expecting merely a larger womb-world of warm comfortable bath water will be wonderfully surprised.
St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Contra Gentiles
In the last book, book 4, of the Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas examines questions concerning the resurrection. In chapter 83 he denies eating and sexual union for the resurrected life. As far as I personally can understand the subject, I find his explanation of our Lord's statement about marriage and the resurrection to be reasonable. On the other hand, Thomas has an “awkward” (the way Aquinas himself describes ideas that are incomplete, inadequate or self-contradictory) stance on why Christ ate after the Resurrection. St. Thomas starts with the premise: “For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life.” (SCG 83:2) Eating and marriage serve only to preserve human life. Since we will be immortal, no such activity would be necessary. St. Thomas says that even in their innocence the first humans, “Adam” and “Eve”, were imperfect because the human race was not yet multiplied as God commanded. Aquinas certainly seems to imply that God intended a specific number of people – when achieved marriage ceases to have any point. I think it is spiritually wise to accept our Lord's words and see that a union of two people, that ends in death, with the purpose of producing the fruit of increased charity and, hopefully, children will pass away as obsolete. But eating? Why “must” all the seemingly unnecessary disappear? Will conversation disappear? Will play disappear? Will art disapear? Music? And how about my friend who wants to make beautiful tables and chairs at which to share this “unnecessary” physical act of communal eating?
As mentioned, Thomas likes to speak of concepts as “awkward”. While Thomas acknowledges that Jesus ate after his Resurrection (Luke 24), he goes on to say that Christ was only doing this to prove the reality of his resurrection: “Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection.” (SCG 83:19)
Yes, The One who can enter a locked room and offer his wounds to the Apostle Thomas demonstrates that the Risen body is in control of the physical. Yes, and we will not have to prove to others that we are truly risen. What is not mentioned, however, is communion. Both meals and the marital act have a supreme value for humans above “the brutes” of being the occasion of possible growth in community. (The difference is that many can share in a meal for mutual physical, social and even spiritual nourishment while the marital act specificly joins husband and wife for a limited union directed at the possible fruit of that union – emotional and spiritual growth and children.) St. Thomas Aquinas states “only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection”. (SCG 83:24) As I have opined, Aquinas' vision of the heavenly or resurrected life relects his own spiritual life – granted, a very advanced spiritual condition. Yet I must ask, does the risen contemplative have a mouth and talk? Have legs and walk with his brothers and sisters? Does he have eyes and admire the awe-inspiring beauty of the redeemed and now transformed universe? No marriage, no eating, only contemplation – a super monastery? I liken such a view of our risen relationship to God to those who realize the sun is the center of the planets and the fuel of life yet would await the consumption of all in a super-nova. Like Jesus showing his Wounds and eating, it was all a pretense.
Here is the basic question. The soul is perfected in heavenly union with God, the ultimate act of contemplation. But why have a risen, glorified body? As a mere static platform for that contemplation floating in a pre-Copernican ether? In defense of Aquinas his following chapter 84 is a strong confirmation of the reality of the risen body and our Lord's words in Luke 24: 39 - “...for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me to have”.
It is clear from Genesis, from our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, and from the groaning of creation cited by St. Paul (Rom 8:18-25) that the physical universe is good, made sacred by the Incarnation and awaiting final transformation. Think again about our Catholic teaching not only on the Resurrection of Christ but also the Assumption body and soul of Mary. Ultimately, the greatest case against an excessively spiritualistic view of our experience of the heavenly life is simply love of neighbor. “...one who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus is clear that the love of neighbor and self are simultaneous with the love of God. But, someone may object, in heaven we will have direct spiritual communion between God, our self and our neighbor. I repeat the response, why have a risen body? No, in the risen life the “planets” will not be absorbed into the sun. Again to be fair to Aquinas, his subsequent chapters declare that the body will be perfected by the blessed soul and share in the sovereignty of God. To repeat myself, as was said in the comparison to the unborn child, we cannot imagine our resurrected life but we can live in hope.
In the end, the greatest weight must be given this consideration: the Flesh of Christ that suffered scourging and crucifixion must in justice share in his Victory.
Suggested Readings in Scripture about the Resurrected Life
All Scripture and Tradition can only be understood within the Church, the Body of Christ.
Psalm 16:10-11
Daniel 12
Mt. 22:23-33
Mark !2: 18-27
Luke 20:27-38; 24:36-43
John 20:19-29; 21: 1-14
Rom. 8:18-25
1 Cor. 15:35-58 (Body transformed: “Not all of us shall fall asleep, but all of us are to be changed...”
1 Thess. 4:13-18 (Unlike Protestant rapture fantasies, this re-affirms 1 Cor. 15)
Phil. 3:17-21
Rev. 21:1-3
Christology and Eschatology
You can have an intimate knowledge of the heart and mind of a person you love but still find it difficult to describe him to someone else. The Church during the first centuries would struggle to find the words to describe Jesus, especially to refute false statements about her Beloved. Today this is called "development of doctrine". Not that doctrine "evolves" into something different but rather the Church's understanding grows as a seed grows with genetic integrity. We see a summary of this growth in understanding in the ancient Apostle's Creed and the Christian-defining Nicene Creed. Jesus is true God and true Man. It is of first importance that we accept true doctrine about Christ, Christology. There is also no reason I know that our understanding of true doctrine about the last things, Eschatology, cannot grow as well.
Early Christians were instinctively moved by faith to reject opinions about Christ that belittled or impinged his true humanity or divinity. A similar theological situation in my opinion may exist today concerning our Christian belief in the nature of the resurrected life. We know that the people of God under the Old Testament grew in their understanding of life after death – from a vague image of a shadow in Sheol (hell) to the resurrection of the flesh. This later understanding is especially made clear in the scene of Jesus with Martha and Mary at the raising of Lazarus. We also see from St. Paul's letters to his churches that people were caught up in imagining what the resurrected life would be like. We Christians have continued to meditate on this life. The struggle is between exaggerating either the physical or spiritual condition of the resurrected ones.
Yet, today, while there is a great body of Sacred Tradition and Scripture concerning the resurrection, most Christians must rely on the creedal formulae “I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” (Apostle's) and “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” (Nicene). Again, in my personal opinion the Church would benefit today from a definitive expression on the true physical condition of the resurrected body and the true dominion of the resurrected soul. Real human flesh under the power of a real human soul in heavenly union with God. Aside from this Catholic development I also think our personal spiritual progress is indicated by our idea of the “life of the world to come”.
Heaven
First, and above all, heaven is the result of God's love. We are in heaven when every stain of selfish sin is removed and we are completely in love with God and all his holy ones. Pope John Paul II affirmed this when he issued a very short ( a few small paragraphs) teaching about “heaven”. He stated simply that heaven is not a place but a state of being. It is the state of being in complete union with God. We, of course, should fully assent to this teaching. When a pope teaches that there is no salvation outside of the Church, we should also fully assent to that teaching as well. But both teachings must be received in the full context of all of Sacred Tradition and Scripture. True, to be “in heaven” is to be in union with God. However, our notion of a “state of being”, pardon the pun, can be amorphous. Being alive, being human, being Christian are states of being but ones that take place and need moment. It is not that the Holy Spirit, providing for the indefectibility of the Church, did not prevent an erroneous teaching by these Popes. It is that these statements can only be understood correctly surrounded by all of Catholic Tradition. In other words, they would be perhaps inadequate and misleading if taken out of that context. If I were there with Pope John Paul II, I might simply have remarked to him, “And the Resurrection?”.
Turning to John Paul II's great project, “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, we learn that it is essential that Man has a body and the dignity of the body (#364 – 366). We learn of the reality of Christ's risen body (#643 – 647). But we also learn that the risen body is “not limited by space and time” (645) and “beyond time and space” (646). The risen share, though as creatures always, the sovereignty of God over the world or universe. This clearly is shown in #645 when declaring that our Lord may appear at any time and in any guise. The point is that any state of being for a creature with a dimensional body will always require “place” even when that time and place is at the will of the gloriously risen one. We will not rise from the dead and our bodies evaporate or “ghostify” as we enter a catatonic ecstatic eternal state of being. Jesus did not ascend to the Father never to appear again. We not only believe in his resurrection and ascension but in “his coming again in glory”.
The Resurrection of Body and Soul
Do you think the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel words of Jesus in Luke 24:36-43 only as a teaching story? Jesus demonstrated that he was not just a spirit. Even earlier than this post-Resurrection appearance our Lord gave the starting knowledge of what the resurrected life would be like. The synoptic accounts in Mt. 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-36 detail his response to the Sadducees' rejection of resurrection of the body.
We can picture the Sadducee group. Barely able to suppress their grins, they approach this country “rabbi” with a delicious satire of the popular belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Surely he will make us laugh at his bumbling attempt to reconcile the ridiculous!
With calm authority Jesus wipes the smirk from their faces. You err, he tells them. Your very question is an error because you know neither the power of God nor the Scripture. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living. Those who rise will not marry because they live like the angels.
Their life is founded on the abilities or law of the Spirit and is not dependent on the physical. They will not die, they are sons of the resurrection.
If we think about this passage carefully we will hear our Lord not only rebuke the Sadducees' sophisicated increduality about the resurrection of the dead but also his rebuttal of a naïve literalism about the event. We also err if we believe that the resurrection is simply a glorious resuscitation of the life in the Garden of Eden. We will not be running around sorting out spouses and third cousins.
It will be important to return frequently, however, to the Luke 24 passage I mentioned briefly at the start of this section. Jesus ate food. ( And perhaps also in John 21 though that is not perfectly clear – he certainly is protrayed by the inspired evangelist as cooking!) Jesus, risen and no longer dependent on food, eats. Is this done just to prove his bodily resurrection or is it an action that hints at the life of the resurrected? We will return again to this subject.
Our Spiritual Stage of Growth
A person's concept of life after our mortal death seems to be indicative of their spiritual development. Let me give two real descriptions of “heaven” I've heard from two people who may represent opposite ends of the spectrum. One good fellow is very religious in his conversation and is constantly available to others for concrete advice and prayer. When he speaks about heaven he describes becoming so united to God that we become God. He imagines a total union of love that we never achieve with God or neighbor in this life. When asked about our Catholic faith in the resurrection he is really not interested. For this person, body and place are simply besides the point. We will be united to God, the source of all good. Nothing else has value. Toward the other end of the spectrum, another friend describes a lovely cottage in a cozy country setting. In that cottage he can be a master carpenter building beautiful furniture. He is imagining the peace, personal serenity and skill that we want in this life but, again, never achieve.
Both pictures of heaven ssek the fulfillment of the heart. So, is the spiritual focus on the Beatific Vision much closer to the mark? Perhaps – but the second one includes the created universe and the neighbor that the furniture is being built for. What happens to our Lord's risen Body in the first vision? To our blessed Mother and the angels and saints? To the “new heavens” and “new earth” spoken of in Revelation? As it is necessary to keep in balance our Christological beliefs in the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, such a balance is necessary for our view of the resurrected life. We must acknowledge, in our idea of this life to come, God as center and also the real goodness of creation and the dignity of our intellect, free will and body. Again, it is vital to remember that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man. We must also keep in mind both the spiritual and physical victory of the Resurrection. Personally I go along with another friend who says every time he imagines our heavenly life, his ideas soon deflate or “go squish”. We simply do not have the ability to see the resurrected life.
A Suggested Comparison
An effective way to proportion the relationship between our lives now and our resurrected life is to compare the unborn child to the adult man or woman. Look at the developing of the unborn but especially at the point where soon they will be born into the world. They are comfortable and seemingly secure in their mother's womb. Yet they are unseeing in an environment of extreme limits. While warmly enveloped they may feel the satisfaction of sucking their thumb. We may imagine them knowing something of “the other than self” by awareness of the bodily processes of the mother – heart beat, blood circulation, digestion, outside sounds and bumps and voices.
Yet what do these unborn children really know of the “born” world? Compare a healthy unborn baby to the fully grown healthy adult. The adult lives in a world that is almost literally infinitely larger. The adult has light versus constant shadow. He has the vision of others. His movement is again infinitely greater – just think of the vast difference between a young athlete and the same person in the womb. Beyond the physical, an adult has a mental and emotional world that defies the comparison. From others he has learned language, community, skills, love. Further, as adults we “sense” the spiritual mysteries as an unborn child would have a vague, undefined perception of the greater outside world. We who believe in the life that comes after the death of this body should realize that we are like an unborn child. The resurrected world will indeed be seeded from this one but more gloriously expanded. As St. Paul remeinds us, faith does not hope in what is seen. Again, we truly have no adequate idea of the glory of our risen life.
While it is true that we cannot know the glory of the risen world, something of the full growth can really be seen in the seed just as we relate the newly conceived baby to the born adult. We can catch perhaps a glimpse of our resurrected life in the Alpha of our Lord's resurrection – Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body and ascended to the Father in that glorified body. But that body did not then evaporate. Remember that the Church teaches that even in his natural span of life Jesus had what we call the beatific vision. Yet the Scripture clearly shows us that Jesus lived like us in all things except sin. The Godly vision of the risen Just will not make the redeemed physical universe disappear – our world will end by transformation as, caterpiller to butterfly, the child is transformed into the adult, as Mary's body was transformed at the Assumption. We will not be left lying down on a blank planetary sphere in a physical catatonic state while our spirits enjoy a solely spiritual communion of the angels and saints. We will move, see, communicate and love God and neighbor in a way beyond what we can now. When we strain to imagine it, we use our limited womb-like experience and fail. But this unborn baby expecting merely a larger womb-world of warm comfortable bath water will be wonderfully surprised.
St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Contra Gentiles
In the last book, book 4, of the Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas examines questions concerning the resurrection. In chapter 83 he denies eating and sexual union for the resurrected life. As far as I personally can understand the subject, I find his explanation of our Lord's statement about marriage and the resurrection to be reasonable. On the other hand, Thomas has an “awkward” (the way Aquinas himself describes ideas that are incomplete, inadequate or self-contradictory) stance on why Christ ate after the Resurrection. St. Thomas starts with the premise: “For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life.” (SCG 83:2) Eating and marriage serve only to preserve human life. Since we will be immortal, no such activity would be necessary. St. Thomas says that even in their innocence the first humans, “Adam” and “Eve”, were imperfect because the human race was not yet multiplied as God commanded. Aquinas certainly seems to imply that God intended a specific number of people – when achieved marriage ceases to have any point. I think it is spiritually wise to accept our Lord's words and see that a union of two people, that ends in death, with the purpose of producing the fruit of increased charity and, hopefully, children will pass away as obsolete. But eating? Why “must” all the seemingly unnecessary disappear? Will conversation disappear? Will play disappear? Will art disapear? Music? And how about my friend who wants to make beautiful tables and chairs at which to share this “unnecessary” physical act of communal eating?
As mentioned, Thomas likes to speak of concepts as “awkward”. While Thomas acknowledges that Jesus ate after his Resurrection (Luke 24), he goes on to say that Christ was only doing this to prove the reality of his resurrection: “Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection.” (SCG 83:19)
Yes, The One who can enter a locked room and offer his wounds to the Apostle Thomas demonstrates that the Risen body is in control of the physical. Yes, and we will not have to prove to others that we are truly risen. What is not mentioned, however, is communion. Both meals and the marital act have a supreme value for humans above “the brutes” of being the occasion of possible growth in community. (The difference is that many can share in a meal for mutual physical, social and even spiritual nourishment while the marital act specificly joins husband and wife for a limited union directed at the possible fruit of that union – emotional and spiritual growth and children.) St. Thomas Aquinas states “only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection”. (SCG 83:24) As I have opined, Aquinas' vision of the heavenly or resurrected life relects his own spiritual life – granted, a very advanced spiritual condition. Yet I must ask, does the risen contemplative have a mouth and talk? Have legs and walk with his brothers and sisters? Does he have eyes and admire the awe-inspiring beauty of the redeemed and now transformed universe? No marriage, no eating, only contemplation – a super monastery? I liken such a view of our risen relationship to God to those who realize the sun is the center of the planets and the fuel of life yet would await the consumption of all in a super-nova. Like Jesus showing his Wounds and eating, it was all a pretense.
Here is the basic question. The soul is perfected in heavenly union with God, the ultimate act of contemplation. But why have a risen, glorified body? As a mere static platform for that contemplation floating in a pre-Copernican ether? In defense of Aquinas his following chapter 84 is a strong confirmation of the reality of the risen body and our Lord's words in Luke 24: 39 - “...for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me to have”.
It is clear from Genesis, from our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, and from the groaning of creation cited by St. Paul (Rom 8:18-25) that the physical universe is good, made sacred by the Incarnation and awaiting final transformation. Think again about our Catholic teaching not only on the Resurrection of Christ but also the Assumption body and soul of Mary. Ultimately, the greatest case against an excessively spiritualistic view of our experience of the heavenly life is simply love of neighbor. “...one who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus is clear that the love of neighbor and self are simultaneous with the love of God. But, someone may object, in heaven we will have direct spiritual communion between God, our self and our neighbor. I repeat the response, why have a risen body? No, in the risen life the “planets” will not be absorbed into the sun. Again to be fair to Aquinas, his subsequent chapters declare that the body will be perfected by the blessed soul and share in the sovereignty of God. To repeat myself, as was said in the comparison to the unborn child, we cannot imagine our resurrected life but we can live in hope.
In the end, the greatest weight must be given this consideration: the Flesh of Christ that suffered scourging and crucifixion must in justice share in his Victory.
Suggested Readings in Scripture about the Resurrected Life
All Scripture and Tradition can only be understood within the Church, the Body of Christ.
Psalm 16:10-11
Daniel 12
Mt. 22:23-33
Mark !2: 18-27
Luke 20:27-38; 24:36-43
John 20:19-29; 21: 1-14
Rom. 8:18-25
1 Cor. 15:35-58 (Body transformed: “Not all of us shall fall asleep, but all of us are to be changed...”
1 Thess. 4:13-18 (Unlike Protestant rapture fantasies, this re-affirms 1 Cor. 15)
Phil. 3:17-21
Rev. 21:1-3
